Abortion to Be New Flashpoint in Senate Bill

Activists Aim to Keep Curbs Out of Final Health-Overhaul Measure After Being Caught Off Guard by Amendment in House

By

Naftali Bendavid

Updated Nov. 24, 2009 12:01 a.m. ET

WASHINGTON -- Abortion-rights groups, acknowledging they were caught off guard by a last-minute amendment toughening abortion restrictions in the House health-care bill, are mobilizing to ensure that doesn't happen in the Senate.

Activists hope to flood Washington to rally and lobby on Dec. 2, during the week that Senate floor debate begins. The Center for Reproductive Rights has aired television ads criticizing the restrictions. On Tuesday, activists will announce the creation of the Coalition to Pass Health Care Reform and Stop Stupak, a network of more than 30 groups. Planned Parenthood -- which says it will oppose the final bill if it contains the restrictions -- has started a petition drive that has been promoted by Cosmopolitan magazine.

"At least it will be a fully engaged debate on both sides," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. "It really wasn't, the first time around. It was a midnight deal."

In the House debate earlier this month, an amendment offered by Rep. Bart Stupak (D., Mich.) stipulated that the bill's publicly run health-insurance plan couldn't cover abortions. It also forbids anyone who receives a federal health subsidy under the bill from buying an insurance policy -- even mostly with their own money -- that covers abortion. People would be allowed to purchase a rider covering abortion with their own money, however. Abortion riders are available in only a handful of states.

The landscape is more hospitable to the abortion-rights forces in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) didn't include the Stupak language in the chamber's bill.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R., Utah.) is expected to offer an amendment similar to Mr. Stupak's. "The sanctity of life is not an issue that can be traded away for political expediency," Mr. Hatch said recently on the Senate floor.

But the amendment will need at least 51 votes to pass, and just two senators in the 60-member Democratic caucus are considered strongly antiabortion: Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania. Two Republicans, Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, favor abortion rights. Many abortion-rights lawmakers say they wouldn't support the final version of the health bill if it includes the Stupak amendment.

Abortion-rights backers want the final version to use language that Mr. Reid put in the Senate bill, which requires health plans to segregate federal subsidies from private premiums, and to use only the latter for abortion coverage. Abortion-rights groups say that is already a compromise.

To make its case, NARAL Pro-Choice America is sponsoring automated calls that connect constituents to their senators so they can voice their opposition to the Stupak amendment. And senators favoring abortion rights are lobbying their colleagues.

"I think there may have been misinformation during the final hours of the House bill being voted on," Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D., N.Y.) said in an interview Monday. "Now that it's been a public issue for a couple of weeks, there is no longer any room for misinformation. They understand how it will put the lives of women and girls at risk, and how it's an extreme expansion of federal restrictions on abortion."

If the Senate passes a bill without the narrower House language, which seems likely, the issue would move to a House-Senate conference committee. It would have to decide which version to adopt, or find a compromise.

Abortion opponents say they will mobilize Catholics and others to vote against any House member who retreats on the language adopted in that chamber. Abortion-rights supporters say they hope that with the added time, they can persuade some House members to accept the bill without that language.

"These representatives will pay a political price if they don't vote for health-care reform," said Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation.

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